Twitter Bans Alex Berenson's Account, Here's Why

Alex Berenson starts a war on anti-mask obligations. (photo: facebook)

JAKARTA - Former New York Times journalist and writer Alex Berenson has been permanently banned from Twitter after posting an anti-vaccination tweet related to COVID-19.

"The account you are referring to has been permanently suspended due to repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation rules," a Twitter spokesperson told Fox News.

Berenson, has long been skeptical of the risks of the coronavirus. He even previously cited the pandemic as an excuse for the government to overstep the boundaries in terms of making rules and authorities.

The 48-year-old posted a screenshot of the tweet to his Substack, in a post he captioned “Goodbye Twitter”, shortly after tweeting on Saturday, August 28.

"This is the tweet that did it," Berenson wrote alongside a screenshot of the tweet that got him permanently banned from the social media platform.

“Completely accurate. I can't wait to hear what the jury will have to say about this."

The tweet itself appears to be in line with Berenson's past statements about the COVID-19 pandemic. More specifically, regarding the obligation to wear masks and participate in the government's vaccine program.

"It doesn't stop the infection. Or contagion," Berenson tweeted, referring to the coronavirus vaccine. "Don't think of it as a vaccine."

“Think of it – at best – as a therapy with a limited window of efficacy and a dire side effect profile that should be given BEFORE INCREASED.”

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the COVID-19 vaccine is “safe and effective”, backed by results from thousands of clinical trials.

Berenson started the war on his anti-mask and vaccine obligations last year, when an Op-Ed he wrote for the Wall Street Journal claimed the pandemic had ushered in a “new age of censorship and repression.”

“Information has never been more or easier to distribute. But we are sliding into a new era of censorship and suppression, driven by tech giants and traditional media companies," Berenson said.

As someone who has been wrongly characterized as a “denier” of the coronavirus, I have seen this crisis firsthand,” he wrote at the time.

The controversial journalist and author also revealed his ongoing dispute with Amazon, which Berenson says is trying to suppress his self-published books on the subject of COVID-19 and its subsequent response.

"Since June, Amazon has twice tried to suppress the self-published booklet I wrote about Covid-19 and its response," he continued.

“This booklet contains no conspiracy theories. Like the scientists who wrote the Great Barrington Declaration, I simply believe that many measures to control the coronavirus have been destructive, counterproductive and unsupported by science,” he wrote.

Berenson began writing for the New York Times in 1999 before leaving the newspaper in 2010 to pursue a career as a full-time writer and novelist.

The Yale-educated novelist was dubbed "the worst person in the pandemic" by The Atlantic for his predictions about the virus.

He initially estimated that the US would not surpass 500,000 deaths from COVID-19. But the country has now reached 637,000 deaths as of today.

Berenson previously enjoyed a massive following on social media, with more than 340,000 followers before his permanent Twitter ban came into existence.